The Last Leviathan
by Rae Roberts
Summary: Sam and Dean go deep undercover at Apple Pie Ridge Elementary School to hunt down one of the last Leviathans. Set more or less at the beginning of Season 8. No excessive angst, no crazy!Cas, no sick!Sam. Whee!chesters...Well, sort of. Rated T for Dean's potty mouth and grown-up!Sam's (off-screen) sexual exploits.
1. Chapter 1

_It's such a good vibration… It's such a swee-eet sensation… _Garth's battered old Ford Ranchero followed a big yellow school bus up the street. Eighties hip-hop blared from the speakers, much to Dean's disgust. He stretched across the seat, trying to reach the cassette deck controls, but Garth easily batted his hand away.

"You know the rules, lil' man. Driver picks the music."

Dean groaned. "I can't believe he talked us into this." He turned to Sam, who, as the smallest, was stuck sitting in the middle, his legs stuck straight out in front of him on the carpeted lump that covered the drive shaft. "Come on, Sammy. I bet you could reach the off switch with your toe if you tried."

_It's such a good vibration (come on, come on, come on!) It's such a sweet sensation! (Feel it, feel it!) _ Sam rolled his eyes. "Shut up. We're almost there."

The school bus pulled into the driveway of the school, lumbering off toward the bus circle at the back of the low brick building. Garth turned to the right and into a parking space at the front. The music stopped as he pulled the key from the ignition.

Dean had already scrambled out. Sam unbuckled the lap belt—he was pretty sure the outdated safety restraint wasn't considered legal for transporting a six-year-old, but the Ranchero didn't have a back seat and he wasn't about to suggest Garth strap him into a booster seat—and followed Dean. His backpack, decorated with the cartoon character Lightning McQueen from the kids' movie _Cars,_ bounced on his narrow shoulders.

The three hunters, one average height and skinny, the other two much smaller than usual, were held back at the crosswalk by a middle-aged woman in a police uniform. The crossing guard blew her whistle, held up her bright red stop sign, and guided the trio across the short distance to the school entrance.

Dean, a sturdy eight-year-old in frayed jeans and a t-shirt emblazoned with the words _Little Brother for Sale_, led the way into the main office with his usual confident swagger. His backpack was navy blue and unadorned. Garth beamed at a secretary and brandished a tattered manila folder bulging with forged immunization records and academic transcripts.

"I'm here to enroll my sons in school!" he announced cheerily.

"Oh. Of course, sir. Right this way."

To Sam's critical eye, the secretary's smile looked a little forced. It was a Wednesday in late October. Of course, the normal kids would have all been registered for school back in August. A bell rang out over the PA system to signal the start of the school day. Another day of being the new kid, Sam thought, hearing it. He sighed heavily as he trailed after Dean and Garth to the principal's office. He'd been to hell and back, but he'd never thought he'd have to endure another day as the new kid in school.

* * *

_Four days ago..._

Dean drummed on the steering wheel as he drove through the light shower. Appropriately, Zeppelin's _Fool in the Rain_ played on the cassette deck. The asphalt up ahead was dry, sunlight beaming down on the two-lane country road. The last few raindrops hit the windshield with a pitter-patter and they broke out of the cloudburst into a perfect Indian Summer day. At that moment, Sam's cell phone rang.

"Huh. It's Garth," he informed Dean, glancing at the screen. "Hey, Garth. Is Kevin okay?"

Apparently the answer was an affirmative, because Sam's worried forehead creases smoothed away, only to be replaced a few seconds later by confused forehead creases.

"A Leviathan? Well, we figured there might still be a few left around." Sam's forehead wrinkled even more as he listened to Garth. "I don't see the problem. Sure, they're tough, but they're not invincible. Soak it down with borax and lop off its head."

"Yeah, 'Garth' the bastard," Dean contributed with a chuckle. One lone Levi didn't seem to be too much for the eccentric hunter to manage, but now the corners of Sam's mouth had quirked down, completing an expression of genuine consternation.

"A school? An _elementary_ school? Okay, we're about seven hours away. We'll meet up with you when we get there." Sam hung up and turned to Dean. "Garth thinks he's found a Leviathan holed up in a school. He says it's taken out two hunters already."

"Damn it, what happened to 'cut off the head and the body will flounder'?" Dean groused. Then he grinned. He had to admit, it was great to be back topside. Back in the game. "Let's go check it out."


	2. Chapter 2

"I don't get it, Garth." They'd checked into the motel Garth was staying at and were now going over his latest case. Sam sifted through a pile of notes spread across the dinette table while Dean chowed down on take-out pizza. "There's no missing kids, no suspicious deaths, no evidence of foul play… Are you sure these hunter friends of yours didn't just bail on you? Because, honestly, I'm not seeing a case here."

"Sam, I'm telling you, whatever this thing is, it's smart." Garth selected several pages of notes from the heap of evidence. Dog-eared on one side and torn on the other, the papers had clearly been ripped from a hunter's journal. "These are Angie Daly's initial notes. The first victim we know of was her cousin's daughter. Normal, happy family," Garth went on. "Mom, dad, two kids… Until one day, mom goes nuts, starts insisting her daughter isn't really her daughter. Says she's been taken over by some kind of monster."

"That's the kind of crazy talk that'll get you locked up in a padded cell," Dean opined between bites of pepperoni, double-cheese pizza.

Sam frowned at him. "Except her cousin Angie, the hunter, believed her story," he surmised.

"Yep." Garth nodded.

"It still doesn't add up. Leviathans absorb all the thoughts and memories of the people they shapeshift into," Sam argued. "If a Levi really had taken the little girl, Angie's cousin wouldn't have suspected a thing."

"And she didn't. Until," Garth said triumphantly, "she just happened to see her sweet, innocent little daughter devour one of the neighbors."

"Huh. That would make you wonder about the kid," Sam had to agree.

"Where's the missing persons report on the neighbor?" Dean asked.

"Wasn't one. Apparently the guy was some kind of Deadhead or something, you know, one of those free spirit, Jack Kerouac _On the Road_ types."

"So when he went missing everybody figured he'd gone off following Phish on tour?" Sam reasoned.

Garth nodded. "Something like that, yeah. Nobody believed the mother of the little girl, that's for sure."

"So why didn't Angie gank the Big Mouth?" Dean wanted to know. "What went wrong?"

"The Leviathan must have realized a hunter was on to it. The whole family just disappeared. Here, these are Angie's notes of interviews with other family members." Garth passed the page across the table to Dean.

"Says here the husband told everyone they were going to check mom into some kind of private psychiatric hospital and rent an apartment nearby so they could visit," Dean read aloud.

"That was the story, but Angie wasn't able to track them down after the move. Nobody's heard from any of them since," Garth explained. "Angie figured the Leviathan made a snack of the whole family and then moved on."

"And then Angie disappeared, too?"

"She was convinced the Levi was operating out of the local grade school, so she forged some credentials and got a job as a substitute teacher."

Sam's frown was back. "Bad idea. If she was close with her cousin and the kid, the Leviathan would have already known exactly who she really was."

Garth nodded. "And it would have a heads up on the next hunter to come nosing around looking for Angie."

* * *

_Wednesday, October 24, 2012_

"I'll just make copies of the boys' records, Mr…"

"Fitzgerald," Garth supplied, bobbing his head in an eager nod.

"All right, then, Mr. Fitzgerald. Mrs. Hansen, the principal, will be with you right after morning announcements." The secretary took the fake school records Sam had created and bustled out of the office, leaving the three hunters to look around curiously.

There was the typical large wooden desk with two upholstered chairs pulled up in front of it. Garth and Dean took seats, leaving Sam to slip behind the desk. The wheeled desk chair was much too large for him and his sneakered feet swung back and forth as he swiftly scrolled through the principal's files.

"Well, there's no record of communiques from Dick Roman or anything else that screams 'Leviathan'," he said dryly.

Dean had just swiped a piece of candy from the decorative jar on the desk when the PA system crackled. A feminine voice, presumably the principal's, announced, _Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. _Garth leapt to his feet, head swiveling on his skinny neck until he located the small American flag on display on one wall. He snapped to attention, right hand over his heart, raising his eyebrows at Sam and Dean when they remained seated.

"Up, up," Garth whispered urgently, gesturing at them.

"Are you serious?" Dean slouched in his chair and rolled his eyes.

"The Fitzgeralds are _patriots_," Garth hissed, grabbing his wayward 'son' by the arm and forcing him to his feet. Dean sighed and brought one hand up to his forehead in a mock salute as the familiar morning recitation came over the loudspeaker. Sam hopped down from the desk chair and placed his hand over his heart, dutifully mouthing the words. The Pledge was followed by a moment of silence and then the usual school-related announcements. Garth listened intently.

"Oh! It's pizza day." He frowned, worried, and began patting the pockets of his jacket, hunting for cash. "Dean, do you want pizza instead of home lunch?"

"It's okay, Garth. School cafeteria pizza tastes like ass," Dean reassured him.

"It's 'Dad'," Sam cautioned. The announcements had ended and the click-click of high heels on linoleum signaled the approach of the principal.

"And watch your language," Garth added.

"Mr. Fitzgerald. I'm Mrs. Hansen," the voice from the announcements, now attached to a slender woman in her late fifties, said warmly, offering a hand to Garth, who shook it with enthusiasm. "And these must be your sons, Dean and Sam."

"Yes, ma'am," Sam replied politely. He and Garth both instinctively turned to Dean, glaring at him and quelling any remark he might have made. Moving to take her seat behind her desk, Mrs. Hansen didn't seem to notice.

"Please, sit down. We just have a few forms to fill out."

Garth reached for Sam, pulling him onto his lap.

"_Gar_—" Sam began to protest, but then, remembering his role, he amended it to, "_Dad!_ I'm a _big_ boy, remember?" He squirmed out of Garth's arms to stand beside the chair while Dean snickered and the principal chuckled indulgently. Sam glowered. This was already the worst first day of school ever.

* * *

_Author's note: Thanks to_ CommChatter _and_ GrammarDemon _for this fic's very first reviews!_


	3. Chapter 3

_Three days ago..._

"So a hunter named Lou who sometimes worked with Angie took over. Got a job at the school working as a janitor…" Dean paused to shuffle through the notes Garth had collected. "I don't get it. The guy checked it out, couldn't find anything. He figured if there was a Leviathan, it moved on after it took out Angie."

"Except Lou is missing now, too." Sam's face was lit by the glow from his laptop as he researched. It was after midnight and Garth had staggered next door to his own motel room to sleep off the single beer he'd indulged in. "Some friend of his tipped off Garth."

"How well does Garth know any of the hunters involved?" Dean stifled a yawn. "Because this whole job sounds sketchy to me."

"Maybe…" Sam's fingers tapped loudly as he typed rapidly on his keyboard.

"What have you got, Sammy?" Dean hopped off the bed, leaving a file of papers scattered in his wake, and peered over his brother's shoulder.

"Chaplins Corners is a typical small town. Everybody knows everybody's business, people look out for each other," Sam said.

"Yeah. Monster moves in, starts eating people, you'd think folks would notice."

"Unless the monster only fed on transients."

Dean frowned. "What transients? You just said it's a tight-knit community."

"There's an Army base about sixty miles away. There's apparently a few military families every year that are willing to make the commute from Chaplins Corners. Idyllic small town setting, good school system... The kind of place parents are willing to make sacrifices for, I guess." Sam tapped another command into his computer. "Here's a list of a dozen 'Army brats' enrolled in the elementary school last year. Seven of them moved away before school started up again last month."

"Yeah, well, military families move around a lot."

"Except I hacked into the DoD personnel records for the base, and at least three of those soldiers are listed as AWOL." Sam leaned back in his chair, tilting his head to frown up at Dean quizzically.

"That doesn't make any sense. Why would married guys with kids go AWOL? Mid-life crisis?" Dean hazarded.

"One guy, maybe, but three? And what guy in the throes of a mid-life crisis takes his wife and kids along with him?"

"Yeah, that's weird," Dean had to agree.

"There's one more thing. I checked out cheap motels in Chaplins Corners," Sam began.

"Can't be any cheaper than this quality establishment," Dean quipped, glancing around at the peeling wallpaper and grunge-colored carpet.

"That's just it. The town has a fleabag motel, and last year a family with two kids enrolled in the school listed it as their place of residence...And as far as I can tell, those kids are missing now, too."

"Transient kids, just like us when Dad was dragging us all over the country on hunts." Dean's eyes narrowed.

"Not really. There's plenty of perfectly normal, non-supernatural reasons a family might be living out of a motel, Dean."

"I'm not saying they were a hunter's kids, Sammy. I'm saying they were outsiders. Kids nobody would think twice about. Kids nobody would miss after they were gone." Dean's voice had dropped to a low growl. Suddenly, the haphazard, second-hand collection of flimsy evidence had become a real hunt. And as far as Dean was concerned, it was personal.

"So we're taking the job?" Sam asked, already knowing the answer.

"Oh yeah. We're going to gank that son of a bitch."

* * *

"We can't take this job," Sam said.

The three hunters had met at a diner for breakfast. Dean shoveled scrambled eggs and bacon into his mouth while Garth took a break from doing the same with pancakes topped with a diabetic coma's worth of syrup, strawberries, and whipped cream.

"Why not?"

"Garth, Dick Roman put out an APB on us. Every single one of the Leviathans knows about me and Sam," Dean explained. "We'd tip the thing off. Then there'd be nothing to stop it from just moving on, finding a new school full of little kids to snack on."

"It's not just us, either," Sam said. "The Leviathan knew about Angie because of her cousin's memories. It knew about the next hunter, Lou, from Angie's memories. If this thing really is a Levi, it will know all about you, Garth."

"Nope." The eccentric hunter looked pleased with himself. "I got the information about this job from a friend of a friend. I never met Angie, or Lou either."

Sam considered this. "Okay, so of the three of us, you're the only one who can take on this hunt without immediately tipping off the Big Mouth. Why'd you call us? It's not like we can just go charging in there with borax bombs."

"Although that idea does have a certain appeal," Dean mused.

"No way. It would be chaos. Kids would get freaked out, maybe hurt, and there's a damn good chance the Leviathan would just get away in the confusion. "

Garth gestured with his fork. "The way I see it, the only way to catch this thing is to enroll as a student."

"Yeah, and you could totally pass as a grade school student," Dean said sarcastically. "We'll just claim you have some weird pituitary gland disorder."

Sam snorted at the mental image of Garth trying to pass as a fourth-grader. "He's right, though. The only way to draw out this Levi would be to send a kid in as bait." The brothers exchanged a look, already in unspoken agreement that there was no way they'd ever put a child at risk like that.

"But what if you guys could pass as students?" Garth asked with a grin.

Dean was immediately suspicious. "You're talking magic," he accused.

The lanky hunter smiled brightly, the picture of innocence. "I might just know somebody that knows an age-regression spell."

"You had this planned all along." Sam scowled, affronted by Garth's duplicity.

"You said it yourself," Garth reminded him. "We need a kid for bait. Or I should say, kids."

"It's the only way," Sam said slowly, reluctant, but he had to agree.

"Witchcraft," Dean groaned. "I hate witches."

* * *

_Author's note: Whew, a lot of exposition in this chapter. Please bear with me, chapter four is full of fluffy Wee!chester goodness, plus a mystery blast from Sam's soulless past. _

_Thank you,_ CommChatter, _for the review! You rock._


	4. Chapter 4

_The next day…_

They pulled up to a small, neat frame house in Garth's Ford Ranchero. Sam got out and stretched, knuckling his fists into the small of his back and popping his spine gratefully. The ride to the home of Garth's friend the witch, Selena Jennings, hadn't been the most comfortable. Not with the three hunters crammed into the cab together, but if all went well, Sam thought, they'd have a lot more leg room on the trip back.

"Wind chimes," Dean groused as they climbed the wooden steps to Selena's front porch. He scowled at the offending assemblage of brass butterflies and bells hanging from the eaves, emitting a tuneful tinkling with every gust of autumn breeze. "Witches and their wind chimes and their tie-dye and their crystals… Man, I don't care if it's old-school, goat-anus-kissin' black magic or new-age, tree-huggin' white magic, witches are creepy."

Garth and Sam ignored his rant. They'd heard it before. Garth knocked and moments later the door swung open to reveal an attractive young woman. Her hair was hennaed and, as Dean had predicted, her low-cut peasant blouse was tie-dyed and her collection of necklaces included several crystals. But it was the long, enticing expanse of bare leg between her cowboy boots and her Daisy Dukes that really caught the brothers' attention.

"Well hello there, sweetheart," Dean purred, apparently forgetting his case of the creeps for the moment. "How you doin'?"

"Hi, Garth, Dean," she purred right back, flashing white teeth in a smile that beamed several magnitudes brighter when she raised her eyes to Sam. "And Sam! Oh my goddess, _Sam Winchester!_ It's been a while."

Sam frowned, puzzled. "Have we met?"

"Wait a minute…" Dean's jaw dropped as he caught on. "You—" He turned to glare at Sam. "She's that hippie chick you banged the night I got abducted by aliens."

"What? There's no such thing as aliens, Dean."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, Sammy. The point is, you took time out to do the free love mattress mambo with Patchouli, here, while your only brother was missing. For all you knew, I was aboard some flying saucer, being probed," Dean accused, affronted.

"I'm sorry, Dean. I was soulless at the time," Sam reminded him in an undertone. He turned back to Selena, his forehead still wrinkled in confusion. "...Sparrow?"

"That's me. Sparrow Jennings," she beamed back, taking his arm and leading him into the house. "Selena is the name I use professionally."

"Great. That's just great." Dean rolled his eyes.

A short while later they were all seated around a table in Selena's dining room, two large ceramic bowls and various herbal and esoteric ingredients spread out on the polished oak in front of them. Selena had made sure to seat Sam next to her. In fact, Dean noted, amused, she was practically sitting in Sam's lap.

"There's enough here for two doses each," the UFO-investigator-turned-witch explained. "One to regress your bodies back to childhood, and another, the antidote, to re-age you back to normal when you're ready. I just need a bit of your essence to personalize and activate each spell." Selena smirked suggestively up at Sam.

"Essence? Ugh." Dean didn't bother to hide his disgust. "What is it with witches and bodily fluids?"

"No body fluids required. Really, it's no big deal," she reassured him. "I can use a lock of hair or fingernail clippings. No need to provide anything...Personal," Selena added with another flirtatious smile at Sam. She placed a possessive hand on the big hunter's bicep. "Unless you want to."

"I can take a hint. Let's go, Garth, I need a haircut anyway." Dean stood up and steered Garth toward the door. "We'll be back later, you two crazy kids."

"Um, 'scuse me just a second, Sparrow." Sam hastily followed them. "Dean," he whispered, "in case you've forgotten, the last time I hooked up with Sparrow was because _I didn't have a soul_."

"Okay, so this time you cry your way through the sex," Dean joked. "Come on, Sammy, she's totally hot. And totally into you. Live a little."

* * *

_Later that afternoon_...

"Hey, Selena...Sparrow...Whatever your name is, make sure you give us the right potions, okay, sweetheart? This is going to be bad enough without me having to drink any of Sam's _essence_," Dean called out.

"Ugh, Dean, shut up." Sam pulled a disgusted face. "My contribution was the same as yours, a lock of hair."

"Pubic or public?" Dean smirked as Selena brought in two glass canning jars, each half-full of cloudy, greenish potion.

Sam chose to ignore Dean's comment. His big brother always got obnoxious—or rather, more obnoxious—when he was nervous. Quelling his own anxiety, Sam accepted the makeshift glass with a smile for Sparrow. "Thanks."

"Bottoms up." Dean clinked his jar against Sam's in a mock toast and they both drank. The brothers set their glasses down and looked at one another quizzically. Nothing seemed to be happening at first. Then Dean's stomach gave a very audible rumbling growl, and Sam felt his own insides give a queasy squirm. A fine tremor ran through him from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. It was rapidly becoming obvious that something major was going on.

From Sam's perspective, it seemed as if the walls of the room were rising all around him. The furnishings loomed up, chairs and table rapidly getting taller. Garth's surprised face receded toward the ceiling and Sparrow's cleavage was suddenly at eye level, swiftly followed by a narrow strip of bare midriff. Sam turned his attention back to Dean before he found his face on a level with the witch's denim-clad crotch. His brother's razor stubble disappeared and the faint sprinkling of freckles on the bridge of his nose grew more prominent and spread across his cheekbones. Dean' hair lightened to a honey shade of blond, his chin softened, and his cheeks plumped. Green eyes widened as he stared back at Sam.

"Dude. I'm taller than you again," he crowed, pumping a suddenly small, uncallused fist in the air.

They stood in puddles of fabric. Sam's arms were lost in the sleeves of his flannel shirt. Dean's work boots reached to his knees and the hem of his t-shirt hung down to meet them.

Selena let out a delighted squeal. "They're so adorable! Aw, look at them, Garth, don't you just want to pinch their little cheeks?"

"Back off," the brothers snapped in unison, trying to retreat from the enamored, advancing adults. Dean tripped over the pair of jeans piled up around his legs and sat down hard on the floor.

Garth plucked up an irate, sputtering Sam and swung him high into the air, leaving the now over-sized jeans and boots in a heap behind him as they slid off his spindly six-year-old legs. "Good thing we already went shopping for kids' clothes," he said, a sappy grin on his face as he set him back down on the floor and ruffled his hair affectionately.

Sam squirmed. "Stop that! Geez, I'm not an infant."

Sparrow knelt down beside him and planted a chaste kiss on his cheek. "Little cutie! Be sure to come on back and visit once you're all grown up again, Sam."

Dean groaned as he searched through his cast off boots and pants for his collection of knives, lighters, and lucky amulets. "What have we gotten ourselves into?"

* * *

_Author's note: looks like I might be getting another snow day tomorrow, so you lovely readers get an unexpected update. Many thanks to_ CommChatter _for your reviews. It's really nice to get those email notifications and read those comments. I would seriously like to bake you a pie, but since that's not possible, how about a custom character of your choice? PM me if you think that sounds like fun. _


	5. Chapter 5

_Wednesday, October 24, 2012_

"Say goodbye to your father, boys. Ms. Lattimer, our guidance counselor, will be here in just a minute with your First Friends."

"First Friends?" Garth asked the principal curiously.

"It's a volunteer program, Mr. Fitzgerald. First Friends volunteer to show new students around the school and help them get settled in."

"Oh. That sounds nice, doesn't it, Sam?"

"Great," Sam muttered without enthusiasm. He struggled as the lanky hunter abruptly swept him up in a hug and planted a kiss on his cheek. "_Gar_—_Argh!_ Put me down!"

Garth set Sam back on his feet and moved in on Dean, who backed up hastily. "Big third-grader, remember, Dad?"

He settled for tousling Dean's hair. "Be good. I'll pick you up after school."

* * *

_Two days ago…_

"Here, Sam, these are perfect for you." Dean tossed a pair of pink sweatpants at Sam's head.

Batting them away, Sam saw that they had the word _Juicy_ spelled out across the backside. He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that's really mature, Dean."

They'd found a Goodwill Bargain Center that sold clothing by the pound. It was the perfect place to outfit a pair of marginalized, transient kids with school clothes. Unfortunately, Garth was the only one taking this particular hunt seriously. He dug deep into the unsorted bins of cast-off clothing, conscientiously checking labels for the correct size and piling his selections in a wire shopping cart.

A rhinestone-studded handbag hit Sam in the chest. "It's just your style," Dean joked, "and you don't even have to wait until you've been shrunk down to kid-size to use it."

"Come on, guys," Garth pleaded, trying to keep the brothers on track.

Sam pounced on the perfect accessory for his annoying big brother. A second later, a string bikini top soared through the air to hit Dean square in the face. "Keep up the cheeseburger and pizza diet and you'll need that to hold up your moobs," Sam snickered.

"Moobs?" Garth looked baffled.

"Man-boobs," Sam smirked. "Moobs."

"Oh, very funny," Dean groused, dropping the bikini back into a bin.

Sam finally turned his attention to actually trying to find some wearable clothing in a boy's size six. He rummaged through the bins for a while, sifting through the smorgasbord of baby clothes stained with spit-up, mismatched shoes, stretched-out sweaters, and the occasional seventies-era artifact of polyester doubleknit.

"Hey, Sammy."

Bracing himself to be pelted with yet another women's clothing item, Sam turned in time to catch the t-shirt Dean tossed at him. Soft and baby blue, when he inspected it he saw that it had _Little Brother_ printed on it in white letters. His eyebrows arched. If there was an insult here, he wasn't seeing it. He looked to Dean, waiting for the punchline, but he was searching the depths of a bin with a diligence that was completely out of character.

"Huh," Sam grunted. It seemed his big brother was feeling a bit sentimental. He watched him for a few more seconds, but Dean was studiously avoiding his eyes. Sam examined the t-shirt once more, decided that he liked it, and added it to the growing pile of little boys' clothes in Garth's shopping cart.

* * *

"Hey, Sam, your First Friend is cute," Dean whispered as they trailed after the guidance counselor on a tour of the school.

"Dude. She's six years old," Sam whispered back, disapproving.

"Yeah, but technically so are you." Dean leered and waggled his eyebrows until Sam's youthful features settled into a very adult-looking scowl. Sometimes it was just too easy to provoke his little brother.

"And this will be Sam's classroom," Ms. Lattimer announced. "Danielle, why don't you show Sam where to hang up his backpack and then you can introduce him to Ms. Williams."

Dean was peering past the guidance counselor into Sam's homeroom. He elbowed Sam in the ribs. "Your teacher is totally hot, too."

Sam shot him one last glare and followed the freckled, pig-tailed little girl into the classroom.

* * *

"Bring your lunch box, Dean," his own First Friend, a skinny boy named James with caramel-colored dreadlocks instructed later that morning as the class lined up to go outside. "We go straight from the playground to the cafeteria. More time for recess," James grinned.

"Yeah, Dean, bring your lunchbox, Dean...Dean the Bean," another little boy teased.

"Just ignore him," James advised. "Brandon doesn't make good choices."

"Dean the Bean. Dean the Bean," Brandon chanted in an undertone, careful not to let the teacher overhear.

Dean ignored him as they filed outside. The taunts would have required a response back when he was a real elementary school student, but now they barely registered. Dean was more concerned with blending in on the playground. The children scattered the instant they passed the doors, swarming over the slides, swings, and climbing equipment.

"Hey, Dean, you play basketball?" James to the rescue. Dean joined the game, careful to hold back. He'd retained his adult coordination and reflexes, which was a good thing considering the Leviathan they were hunting, but it did mean he had to be cautious not to display a precocious level of skill.

"Dean the Bean! Dean the Bean!"

Brandon had joined the game, elbowing James in the ribs and taking control of the ball. Dean snagged it back and sank a basket. So he had to blend in as a third-grader, he thought. Didn't mean he had to be a _klutzy_ third-grader.

* * *

"If you drink all your milk you're allowed to get extra, but you've got to raise your hand and ask the lunch lady first."

James was taking his First Friend duties seriously. Dean grinned and clapped him on the back. "Sounds great, James. Save me a seat."

"You're not supposed to get out of line," the little boy protested, but Dean was already gone. He'd caught sight of Sam sitting with his first grade class at one of the long tables, and the instinctive urge to check up on him had kicked in, too strong to resist.

"Hey, what's with the bling?" Dean demanded, coming up behind Sam and tugging on the string of plastic Mardi Gras beads around his neck.

"I'm the designated table-wiper." Sam rolled his eyes. "Apparently it's a highly coveted job among first-graders."

"You always were the teacher's pet," Dean smirked.

"You need to sit down at your own table, young man."

A lunch lady had arrived, complete with hair net and white apron. Dean wrapped an arm around Sam and beamed his best bright-eyed, innocent smile up at her. "Just checking on my baby brother, ma'am. It's our first day here."

"Well, don't you have just the nicest manners. Don't worry, I'll look out for your brother until his teacher gets here. Give him a hug and run along back to your table and eat your lunch," she said kindly.

Dean gave Sam's shoulders a dutiful squeeze, surprised when Sam turned in his seat and buried his face against his chest, wrapping his skinny six-year-old arms around Dean's waist in a brief but fierce hug. "Sam?"

Sam's grin was sheepish as he pulled away with a shrug. Apparently Dean wasn't the only one caught up in long-forgotten childhood patterns. Dean tousled his brother's hair, earning himself another classic Sam glare, and went to eat his lunch.

* * *

_Author's note: So I work at an elementary school and we have 'First Friends' for the new students just as in this story. I don't know how helpful it is, having spent my entire K-12 years in the same small town with the exact same people in my classes every year, but the concept sure seems nice. We also use the Mardi Gras beads at lunch because otherwise the younger kids will literally riot over whose turn it is to wash the tables. Insanity! Many thanks to_ CommChatter, Olivia Crane, OneCutePug, _and_ 'Guest' _for the reviews! Thank you for your patience, everyone. _


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